In conventional networks using remote servers (e.g., corporate business networks), documents and other files stored on remote servers can be edited by a client device, for example using a remote desktop access application. For example, existing remote access software, such as Parallels Remote Access Server, provide users with the ability to edit locally stored documents by a remote application, running on a terminal server, for example.
More recently, many companies have begun to employ a “bring your own device” or “BYOD” policy in which companies are providing access to corporate applications from users devices. Since the corporate documents and files may appear on users devices, there are also software solutions to protect these documents from unauthorized access in case an employee leaves the company, loses his or her device, or the like. For example, existing methods either maintain the documents on the user's devices in an encrypted form by a user's key or store the documents only on corporate servers/PCs and prevent the documents from being stored locally on the user's device.
However, there are significant drawbacks to both types of existing systems. For example, if a corporate file is stored on a user's device in encrypted form, the user can have access to this file even if he or she is dismissed from the company since the decryption key is stored locally on the computer. On the other hand, maintaining all files only on corporate servers does not give a user flexibility to use the computing power of his or her own devices. Moreover, when the corporate servers are managing thousands or even millions of documents that need to be accessed by users, the corporate servers must employ a high bandwidth connection so that these users can access the files stored on the remote servers.